The Story of Little Tsar Novishny, the False Sister, and the Faithful Beasts

”––But she replied, “How can I be thy foe when we two live all alone together in a strange land?”––“Well, I will get it for thee,” said he. For again he believed in his sister.

So he mounted his steed, took his pack with him, and departed, and he came to the land where were that boar and that mill she had told him of. He came up to the mill, tied his horse to it, and entered into it. And there were twelve furnaces there and twelve doors, and these twelve doors needed no man to open or shut them, for they opened and shut themselves. He took meal from beneath the first furnace and went through the second door, but the dogs were shut in by the doors. Through all twelve doors he went, and came out again at the first door, and looked about him, and––there were no dogs to be seen. He whistled, and he heard his dogs whining where they could not get out. Then he wept sore, mounted his horse, and went home. He got home, and there was his sister making merry with the serpent. And no sooner did the brother enter the hut than the serpent said, “Well, we wanted flesh, and now flesh has come to us!” For they had just slain a bullock, and on the ground where they had slain it there sprang up a whitethorn-tree, so lovely that it may be told of in tales, but neither imagined nor divined. When the little Tsar saw it, he said, “Oh, my dear brother-in-law!” (for without his dogs he must needs be courteous to the serpent) “pray let me climb up that whitethorn-tree, and have a good look about me!” But the sister said to the serpent, “Dear friend, make him get ready boiling water for himself, and we will boil him, for it does not become thee to dirty thy hands.”––“Very well,” said the serpent; “he shall make the boiling water ready!” So they ordered the little Tsar to go and chop wood and get the hot water ready. Then he went and chopped wood, but as he was doing so, a starling flew out and said to him, “Not so fast, not so fast, little Tsar Novishny. Be as slow as thou canst, for thy dogs have gnawed their way through two doors.